Devon Cooke 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (34)

• On the post: The UK Has A Voyeuristic New Propaganda Campaign Against Encryption

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2022 @ 01:08pm

  Metaphor fail

  Maybe I'm missing something because I'm reading about the propaganda rather than seeing it, but my first assumption was that the communication was between parent and child. Which kind of seems like it backfires to me.

  Because I can't think of a better example of things that should be kept private and sacred than a parent-child relationship. If the suggestion is that big brother should be watching all our parents, that gets a big hell-no from me, and, I would think, from most parents.

• On the post: Canada Strikes Again: Allows Lawsuit Against Twitter To Proceed Over Speech Of Twitter Users

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2021 @ 02:27pm

  Re: Re: Who is forum shopping here anyway?

  And ... uh ... this entire article is about how Giustra just proved standing the BC Court, and the BC Court accepted his argument. So, yes, this is exactly how it works. I certainly agree the Giustra looks a bit like a scheister, and I don't expect he will get too far in B.C. But your complaint isn't about whether he has standing. He does, and he just went to court to prove it. You may disagree about what constitutes proper standing, but this issue doesn't hinge on whether or not he needs to prove standing in the first place; he does, and he did.

• On the post: Canada Strikes Again: Allows Lawsuit Against Twitter To Proceed Over Speech Of Twitter Users

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2021 @ 01:54pm

  Re: Re: Who is forum shopping here anyway?

  I wouldn't worry about individual lawsuits; the federal government's proposals to regulate social media will do that long before civil suits. Point being, jurisdictional issues are hard. They always have been. There was a time (not long after Lawrence Lessig wrote "Code") when I believed that the global nature of the internet would stay out of reach of local laws. That time is long past. Local jurisdictions are asserting themselves worldwide. China is barely part of the global internet, and Russia and other states are rapidly balkianizing the internet. We aren't getting away without some form of local regulation. And, no, the rest of the world isn't delegating that to US law; the US has long since lost its moral authority to do that. What we can do is try and make sure that the local laws that inevitably get made respect the resources and scope of the people and companies who live worldwide, and who interact across borders. That means limiting things like extradition (hello Assange!), perhaps accepting the reality that Geoblocking may be the least bad option to allow local jurisdictions to function globally (not to mention the fact that it's already widespread), and accepting the fact that you don't always get your choice of venue for your lawsuit. I don't pretend to have this issue solved; I'm only grudgingly accepting the fact that we can't just let the internet exist outside of local laws and lawsuits. But, unless we somehow create (and — the hard part — agree on) a global government that can adjudicate lawsuits worldwide, we are going to have to deal with lawsuits in foreign jurisdictions.

• On the post: Canada Strikes Again: Allows Lawsuit Against Twitter To Proceed Over Speech Of Twitter Users

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2021 @ 11:09am

  Who is forum shopping here anyway?

  I think we can agree that Giustra doesn't have a case here — in B.C. or California.

  The rest of the article just seems like butthurt that America doesn't get to set the rules for the rest of the world. Which — sorry — after witnessing the last decade of American politics, the idea that America is uniquely positioned to protect the internet for the world is long gone.

  We are going to have to deal with the thorny jurisdictional issues of where "online" activity happens, and the default answer is not America.

  If Giustra is truly a B.C. resident (which seems questionable), he should absolutely be able to get relief from B.C. courts. Not everyone has the luxury of owning mansions in West Vancouver and Beverly Hills, but just even if Giustra is not a sympathetic plaintiff that doesn't the courts should ignore him. I would very much like to have assurance that, when I interact with Twitter in B.C., I'm protected by things like B.C. privacy law even if that means giving millionaires like Giustra a chance to shop around.

  Is Giustra forum shopping? Maybe he is. But so is Twitter — that's the whole point of the court's discussion about juridical advantage: Twitter wants to hear the case where it is advantageous to Twitter. Giustra wants to hear it where it advantageous to him. So how should we decide? The court's analysis of analogous laws seems as good an approach as any.

  Is B.C.'s third-party liaibility law equivalent to Section 230? Not exactly, but that's not the point.

  No, B.C.'s intermediary liability doesn't allow for early dismissal. But, B.C.'s court system also doesn't allow for such expansive discovery, and it awards costs to the winner, which helps keep nuisance lawsuits under control. The reason why S230's procedure benefit matters in the U.S. is irrelevant in B.C., because Twitter can genuinely win on the merits and not be out of pocket.

  You want to talk about silly legal systems? Start by looking at the US system which allows unlimited discovery and doesn't automatically award costs. Then look at the complete lack of a functional US privacy law (something that actually exists in B.C.)

  And when you're done, maybe consider that things don't work like they do in California everywhere else, and there's nothing wrong with that.

  You can keep Giustra though.

• On the post: The FCC Ponders A Hugely Problematic Tax On WiFi

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2021 @ 02:16pm

  What the hell does Wifi have to do with the broadcast spectrum?

  This article needs way more explanation to make sense.

  Wifi, Bluetooth etc. exist in designated "unlicensed spectra", mainly 2.4GHz & 5.6GHz, but also a few less familiar bands. In the US, those bands are set by the FCC.

  Notably, those bands are not in the so-called "broadcast spectrum" (these days, pretty much just the 500MHz band), which is a licensed band, dedicated to broadcast television (again, this is policy set by the FCC, not broadcasters).

  Within the 500MHz band, the FCC has also licensed a limited number of devices (pretty much entirely wireless audio transmitters as far as I know), which are severely limited in terms of output so they don't interfere with regular TV signals. These devices are designed to use the "so-called" white spaces, or "shoulders" between the channels.

  When people use those wireless transmitters (mainly, churches, live music venues, theatres, and film crews), they are typically "unlicensed users" of the broadcast spectrum (though there are few places where unlicensed use is not permitted, and a license is required to use a wireless audio system).

  Allowing just anyone (Microsoft or whoever) to produce unlicensed radio gear that operates in the broadcast spectrum will cause the existing, licensed devices (again, mostly wireless microphones) to stop working due to interference.

  From my perspective as an audio engineer, allowing unlicensed use of the broadcast spectrum will make it impossible to do my job, and cost me tens of thousands of dollars in gear that will no longer function properly.

  I can't say I love the idea of a tax on unlicensed users (that will cost me money), but the need to reserve broadcast "white spaces" for wireless audio is vital for me to do my job, and for any "event" venue that uses wireless audio to operate.

  This is not an issue of broadcasters "owning" the broadcast spectrum, it's an issue of using the 500MHz "broadcast" band for the purpose it was reserved for by the FCC, namely broadcast television and the limited number of audio devices that are licensed and designed to share that band. Allowing devices (such as WiFi or Bluetooth) that are designed to share "unlicensed spectrum" with the existing users of the 500MHz band will break things for existing users (i.e. audio techs like me). The two uses are NOT compatible.

  And all of that has nothing to do with WiFi or Bluetooth users, who already exist quite happily in their designated 2.4GHz band.

  I have no idea if the proposed "tax" is intended to apply to 2.4GHz devices (which would be shocking, and bad), but the article should clarify what is actually meant here. As it is, the article seems to completely misunderstand what's happening here; the NAB doesn't give a hoot about WiFi or the 2.4GHz band. It cares that its members that use the 500MHz "broadcast spectrum" are able to continue doing so, and that membership includes a great number of wireless audio manufacturers (i.e. this has nothing to do with AT&T).

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 02 May, 2021 @ 06:32pm

  Re:

  Then read the original column from Rubio.

  Why? I don't care what Rubio thinks. He's not worth wasting my time on. I happen to agree with one sentence from the two paragraphs that Mike quoted, and that one sentence came immediately after an absolute whopping turd of a statement about the honesty of policymakers that I and many others here easily exposed as bullshit. I care what Mike thinks. That's why I read him. And when he writes something that isn't well supported, I figure that's worth pointing out. He is capable of much, much better. In all honesty, (and I hope Mike is reading this), I would prefer he had never wasted his time writing this post or my time reading it. The blather that comes out of Rubio's mouth isn't worth blogging about. Techdirt has changed many policy discussions and broken many important stories. It didn't do that by posting hot takes on words from stupid politicians. It did it by carefully explaining how tech and policy intersect, and making a reasoned case for why a certain policy is worthwhile. This post contains none of that. All this story did was give Rubio's words free publicity and lend them legitimacy. Mike should have ignored it, not written about it.

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 02 May, 2021 @ 06:18pm

  Re:

  You mean like the “we’re real free speech services” PR of services like Gab and Parler?

  Yes, I mean exactly like that. Stop assuming anyone who you disagree with is conservative.

  By using it in reference to anything that you dislike, you make it mean nothing, such that it can apply to anything regardless of whether you like it

  1. Let me quote the only time I've used the word "woke" outside of a quote: "I would never be caught dead using the word 'woke'." Explain to me how you came to interpret that as me using the word in reference to anything I dislike?
  2. In my experience, "woke" is already pretty meaningless ... and I don't see this particular thread helping that situation.

  Is 8kun any less “woke” than Twitter for promising “true free speech” on its service?

  I've never heard of 8kun, but promising "true free speech" sure sounds like moralizing crap to me. I'm not sure how Twitter comes into this ... but if they are also spouting moralizing crap, then I'd call them equivalent.

  Would you prefer they signal vice instead? Would you prefer they signal hatred and anger?

  I would prefer they signal nothing at all. I would prefer to live in a world where serious conversations (and voting campaigns) are not conducted through paid advertising. Sadly, this is not the world we live in, but I appreciate Rubio recognizing that fact.

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 01 May, 2021 @ 12:13am

  Re: Re: Evidence Missing

  My post wasn't aimed at what Rubio said. I'm saying the words that Mike quoted didn't provide enough context to back up his assertion that Rubio was only complaining about non-conservative PR. I'm quite prepared to believe that Mike is, in fact, correct about this. But he didn't prove it. He was sloppy in writing the post, and the words he quoted do not back up the conclusion he draws from it. And, as much as I respect Mike and tend to agree with his conclusions, I still expect him to back up his assertions with evidence. In this case, he has not provided that evidence, though it may well exist. And, sorry, I don't buy that saying "qui bono" is sufficient evidence (not to mention, Mike didn't cite qui bono).

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2021 @ 11:57pm

  Re:

  What do you think is meant by “woke corporate PR” in this situation?

  PR that signals the company's moral superiority as a way to pander to potential customers.

  I’m sure you have plenty of examples from, say, conservative-leaning corporations. Go ahead, show us some. I insist.

  I tend to assume that most corporations lean somewhat conservative without strong evidence otherwise, but I haven't made a habit of following the political leanings of many companies. So, forgive me if I've gotten the political leanings of Coca-Cola (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR50Vb_AWHI) and McDonalds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCx0hweSJCY) wrong. Categorically speaking, greenwashing is like a prime example of this happening. Any oil company (Shell) or car company (GM) selling themselves as ecologically friendly runs a strong risk of selling fake "wokeness" ... and I wouldn't expect many companies in these industries to lean left. More to my point, all commercials do this. Advertising works on the basis of attaching a brand to certain values. To varying extents, commercials work by signalling the moral desirability of the brands they advertise. Commercials may be more or less explicit (and effective) at doing this, but the underlying principle of advertising is based on signalling virtue. The fact that we take moral cues from people selling us crap is a problem, and just because it's Marco Rubio pointing this out doesn't make that any less true.

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2021 @ 09:09pm

  Evidence Missing

  "Got that? Political views that go against Rubio are "toxic waste" and therefore must be regulated. Of course, corporations that have views that Rubio agrees with are somehow all about fresh air and freedom."

  Is there some missing context here? Rubio's words, as quoted here, don't support the idea that he's targeting opposing political views ... just "woke corporate PR" in general.

  On that note, I'm inclined to (reluctantly) agree with Rubio, though I would never be caught dead using the word "woke".

  Show me any commercial (TV or online), and I'll show you an example of insincere virtue signalling. It's not hard to imagine that such commercials have a cultural influence (marketing works), but also signalling that saying the right words insincerely is normal and acceptable.

  I think that concern is valid, and I don't see how it's partisan in any way.

• On the post: Senator Marco Rubio: Speech I Disagree With Is Pollution

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2021 @ 08:57pm

  No policymaker

  "No policymaker would allow a company to dump toxic waste into a river upstream of a thriving town he is charged with governing."

  Rubio: Meet Jason Kenny and his "mountain-top removal" coal mining program in the watershed of the Oldman River.

  I see that I'm not the only one who twigged on to this line...

• On the post: Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 08:23am

  Re: Re:

  However, to get the most out of my comment, you should download the "Patent Disputes" DLC, yours for just $0.99. It's a cheap joke.

• On the post: Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 08:01am

  Re:

  Your sarcasm detector is working.

• On the post: Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2021 @ 10:53pm

  PrePear fixed it

  Well, looks like PrePear finally got the message. They could have saved everyone a lot of time and money if they drawn the leaf without rounded corners in the first place.

• On the post: In The Rush To Strengthen Antitrust Law, We Could Kill Useful Mergers And Acquisitions

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2021 @ 09:22pm

  The VC Business Model is the problem

  The second one, on the burden shifting is perhaps equally problematic. And, here, the real risk is in killing off new startup creation. When VCs invest in a startup, their hope is that the startup is their unicorn or rocketship -- becoming a multi-billion dollar market leader. These are the deals where VCs make all their money -- on the huge success stories, the 100x return investments. But only a very small percentage of investments are such hits. The second best result for a VC is to have the startup acquired for a decent gain. A 10x gain is nothing for them to write home about, though it's nice. A 2 to 3x gain is a failure in the world of VC, but it's better than... nothing at all.

  This seems like a fairly perfect description of the problem. VC's are trying to create companies so big they overpower all existing competition ... a monopoly, in other words. A world dominated by "multi-billion dollar market leader[s]" is not a world that allows for much depth in competition. VC funded "disruption" functions by dumping so much money into one company that it gains enough market power to force the rest of the industry out of business. That's the goal.

  And if the consolation prize is a merger, and the consolation prize is the result 99% of the time the companies don't outright fail, in what sense are VCs ever creating competition? There is no final outcome that results in a genuine competitor; either the VC-backed company dominates and pushes all the other companies out of the market, or it "fails" and serves to bolster the market share of one of its competitors — likely one that is already on the large side, since larger companies are usually the ones that can afford acquisitions.

  So, for an investor to fund startups, it helps to know that the backup plan for companies that don't become billion dollar unicorns is that they can sell out to someone else, and at least get some return. But under this bill, the deal flow for those kinds of deals will dry up. The big companies that startups and VCs rely on for decent (but nothing special) exits go away. As a result, it makes VCs less interested in investing. Because the expected returns drop significantly. That means it's likely that they'll invest in fewer startups, thereby diminishing innovation and competition.

  There was a time when we argued that record labels had no right to their business model, which was true. The same applies here: VC's have no God-given right to the VC business model of fishing for unicorns. If we change the rules to make unicorns harder to create and the consolation prize (acquisition) harder to achieve, yes we'll force VCs to adapt, but so what? Things change. The question we should be asking is, does the rule change make for a more competitive marketplace? Which, I would argue, it probably will.

  Saying it will make VCs less interested in investing because they can't exit so easily sounds to me like the notion that artists will be less motivated to create because they don't have copyright. In both cases, it misunderstands the motive involved. VCs are motivated to invest, and they will still have money they want to invest if the rules change. If they can't make money from acquisitions, they'll find a different business model.

  If we are lucky, maybe they'll invest permanently in exchange for a share of the profits (i.e. dividends), which means they'll be incentivized to ensure that the company remains independent, and thus a viable competitor in the marketplace.

• On the post: No, Revoking Section 230 Would Not 'Save Democracy'

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2021 @ 08:55pm

  Re: Re: I'm not convinced

  you would keep to talking about issues where you have a point and stop complaining about communities kicking off toxic members

  Who do you think I am exactly? Where did you see me complain in the slightest about users being banned? That has nothing whatsoever to do with my post.

  do you realise that section 230 has absolutely fuck all to do with ad networks?

  I do realize, and I explicitly said as much. I literally wrote "This comment isn't about Section 230 at all." So ... why are you bringing it up?

• On the post: No, Revoking Section 230 Would Not 'Save Democracy'

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2021 @ 01:22am

  I'm not convinced

  Second of all, the entire point of having utilities is when you have natural monopolies over commodity style, non-differentiated products. That's not true of social media.

  It's not??? Ok, yes there are plenty of options for social media, but that's not the business that Google and Facebook are in. If you evaluate the need to regulate them as utilities based on their actual industry — online advertising — I think the claim at least deserves consideration.

  Do Google and Facebook have a monopoly on online ads? There are other ad networks, but, as Techdirt has discovered in moving away from Google, the pool isn't very deep, and advertisers tend not to be as interested. The two companies may not have complete dominance yet, but things are tending in that direction. Both companies have network effects that lock-in they eyeballs they are selling, as insofar as those network effects are effective, that pushes their duopoly towards being "natural". Users may have a legitimate choice to go elsewhere, but if advertisers want to buy effective ads, they have no choice but to buy from the companies that have attention to sell. That means the companies that successfully aggregate attention, and Facebook and Google do this on a scale that is unmatched.

  Are they selling a commodity? You bet they are: Attention, measured in standardized units (CPMs, views, engagements). It doesn't matter whose attention; eyeballs are interchangeable from the point of view of the ad buyers.

  Is the attention differentiated? Well ... a little bit. To the extent that targeting is believed to be effective, the different targeting models serve as product differentiation. But, mostly that amounts to selling advertisers what they want to hear. At the end of the day, advertisers are looking for conversions (i.e. sales), and there simply isn't much differentiating a sale via Facebook from a sale via Google. The mechanisms may be different, but the end result is fairly similar.

  So ... maybe it's not cut-and-dried that Google and Facebook are natural monopolies that deserve to be regulated as utilities, but I think there's enough of an argument to be made that it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

  P.S., because I know this will come up: I haven't read and don't have an opinion on the original Tribune article about Section 230. This comment isn't about Section 230 at all. I'm purely critiquing Mike's assumption that it's self-evident that social media is not like a utility. When you look at the actual business (advertising), rather than user-facing service, I think there's plenty of reason to consider them utilities.

• On the post: I Wish More Countries 'Stole' Our Movies

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2020 @ 04:02pm

  This is the best Techdirt article I've read in a long time!

  More like this please! I started reading Techdirt because it was so full of examples of how copyright law and truely open culture are at odds. I miss those articles, and this one is a great example of the genre!

  Our culture truly suffers when the decisions around what kind of information and entertainment get made are solely profit-driven. Copyright enables this kind of media production, and even though those problems are more often talked about in the context of social media these days, copyright still has a strong effect on the types of media that get produced.

• On the post: Axel Voss Says Maybe YouTube Shouldn't Exist

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2019 @ 11:29am

  Here's a compromise I could live with

  If Axel Voss really thinks Article 13 is only intended to affect a small number of sites because only "commercial" works get copyright, let's compromise.

  The price of Article 13 is another clause that states that copyright exists by registration only. No more copyright on creation — it's strictly a commercial right that you have to register and pay for.

  That would reflect the way he thinks things work already, and it would solve nearly all of the unintended consequences. Real user-generated content is not ever going to be registered, and would be considered copyright-free. Thus, 98.5% of websites would indeed not fall under Article 13 (including, notably, YouTube).

  Publishers get a tool for going after pirate sites that distribute their registered commercial work. Everyone else gets left alone. As a bonus, going back to a registration-only system would solve a huge host of other copyright related problems that arise from automatic copyright.

• On the post: Copyright Society's 'World IP Day' Lesson: Give Us Your Copyrights For Nothing

  

  Devon Cooke ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2017 @ 10:34am

  Re: Re: Contest submission link

  thanks.

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